26.02 | The Family Likeness
Romans 4
‘That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all’
Romans 4:15
I have an ancestor who was known as Mad Jack Mytton.
Mad Jack was born into a significant fortune, and lived the life of a wild eccentric. Stories of Mad Jack include keeping a pet bear (which he’d ride into the middle of formal dinner parties to spice things up), naked fox hunting in the dead of winter, and trying to get rid of hiccups by setting his shirt on fire (which, it turned out, was effective).1
I enjoy the stories. They’re hilarious. But there’s also something in a connection to history—to lineage—that gives him an extra measure of importance to me. Mad Jack is not exactly my life guru, but there is something in his sheer abandon of cultural expectations that make me just a little bit fond of him. He’s in my family tree. Something about my story has been touched by his.
As Paul wrote to those first Roman Christians, he knew that ancestry was hugely important to the Jews too. The great ancestor of the Jews was (and is) Abraham.
Abraham, who was picked out as God’s friend. Abraham, the ‘father of many nations,’ who received the promises of land and blessing and a coming Son of promise who would bring these things to fulfilment.
Being a child of Abraham, they believed, was primarily a matter of both physical descent and religious obedience. Of DNA and circumcision. And that this connection to the bloodline and ways of Abraham qualified them as inheritors of the righteousness and the promises of Abraham.
Paul is inhabiting this story.
However, he’s also interrupting it.
The Jews had viewed the ethnicity of Abraham as something limiting. It made everyone else outsiders. Paul goes to the very name of Abraham (literally, ‘father of many nations’), to point out that God’s purpose in Abraham was not the restriction of righteousness, but rather a plan that led to the expansion of it—into every nation on the earth.
And there’s one word that he zones in on. One word that gives the single unifying familial characteristic.
Faith.
Faith. Faith has to do with what you recognise as real. It is an assumption that behind all things is the God of goodness and power and holiness and promise, and living our day-in, day-out choices out of that precise reality.
And as Paul looks at the story of Abraham, he says that this is exactly as it worked for Abraham too.
He wasn’t chosen because he was righteous.
Rather, he was chosen because he had faith.
And this faith—this way of living both in and out of the reality of God—led to God declaring him righteous.
This is how it worked for Abraham. He wasn’t righteous because he kept the rules. God didn’t give him any. He wasn’t considered righteous because he was circumcised. That came after. Abraham was considered righteous because he simply began with belief, and that belief led into a lifestyle of trusting friendship with the Father.
Actual spirituality begins here. Not rules, performance, trying harder, our backgrounds or success.
But faith. Simple, moment by moment living accompanied by the reality of the Father. Walking our daily moments with a breathed in, breathed out, awareness of Him. Learning to see our every moment, not as encumbered with religious burdens of duty and shame, but in the vast opportunity and wonder that the God who made the stars accompanies us in every moment of our pilgrimage.
This is the root of all spirituality.
This is how it was with Abraham.
And this is how it is with us.
Because we share with him the only family likeness by which we are qualified to participate:
Faith.
Reflect:
Faith recognises that God is real and that He is good.
Bring your day to God, with its troubles and anxieties.
Now look again, factoring in the reality of the faithful God of love, who is your formative reality.
Pray:
Father in heaven,
My faith doesn’t always feel very impressive.
I tend to criticise the little bit of faith that I have,
Thinking it should probably be more impressive and mighty
Rather than what feels small and humble.
I tend to get distracted by many other things,
Many other ways to flourishing,
Glancing this way at that for another path to wholeness.
Today, Father,
Simplify me.
Take my mustard seed of faith:
Nurture and grow it,
And teach me to see my every moment
In the endless perspective
Of the invading reality of You
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Leviticus 26-27 | Psalm 28
He’s worth ten minutes of your time on his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mytton